Pastor Linda Taylor: Who, me? I wasn’t smoking

I remember when I was a young teenager, and I knew if I smoked, I was somebody important, and if I smoked a cigarette, I was tough and you didn't mess with me.

The truth was that no matter how grown up I thought I was, I didn't dare smoke around my parents, even though they smoked. So I would go into the bathroom and open the window as wide as I could to blow the smoke outside. During the summer, this was fine, but in the middle of a cold winter it would shorten my smoke time. That didn't matter too much as long as I could smoke my cigarette.

One day when I was smoking, my mother came to the door and wanted to come into the bathroom, so I cleared the smell of smoke as fast as I could and let her in.

She said that she could smell smoke as she came into the bathroom, and she asked me if I had been smoking. Of course I lied to her. I replied that it must have been her smoking that she smelled. Not believing me, she let the issue drop.

Many times I would have to borrow my mother's cigarettes when I ran out. I would take one or two out of her pack once in a while until I had made enough money to buy some more.

I always would replace the borrowed cigarettes before she noticed they were missing. One day she was out of cigarettes and gave me some money to go to the store to buy her a pack.

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I didn't want to go, so I tried to talk her out of it, knowing the day before I had put a new pack of cigarettes into her purse. I figured she'd look into her purse and that would be that.

Instead of looking, she wanted me to go to the store and get her some. I couldn't confess to her that I had put a new pack of cigarettes in her purse, but through some fast talking (lying), I finally convinced her to look into her purse and there they were. Looking back at me, she said I don't remember having this pack. I replied that she must have forgotten, because the old forgotten excuse always was the best.

I really don't think that she believed me, but she didn't say anymore.

You know a lie is a lie no matter how you try to cover it up.

I told my youth group this past week that when you start to lie, you have to lie again and again to cover up your lie. Pretty soon, you have forgotten the truth.

It took a lie to put Jesus on the cross ( Mark 14:53-59). They could not prove him false so they told a lie about him.

They were like me in that they thought they could talk their way out by lying. We see people today changing the truth to make it work for them.

People, a lie is a lie, no matter what.

It didn't matter that I replaced my mother's cigarettes. I still lied to her and that took away from the truth.

Jesus paid the price for my lying. No, I didn't ask him to, he just did it because he loved me. My mother knew I was lying, but she loved me enough to excuse my lie.

Jesus loves us so much that he has set us free from our sins at the cross. In Titus 1:2, it speaks of living forever. You are going to live forever in heaven or hell. It's your choice, just like lying or telling the truth is your choice.

Please don't let a lie steal the truth from you, because the truth will set you free.